


20 times Akuze almost gets Shepard

by starkeeper



Series: Reda Shepard [4]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: (seriously I don't believe in hurt without comfort), (there's hope at the end), Akuze, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Mass Effect 1, Recovery, SSV Tokyo, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Therapy, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24311143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkeeper/pseuds/starkeeper
Summary: After Akuze, Shepard fights to gain back agency.(Covers both how Reda Shepard deals with the aftermath of Akuze and how she ended up working with Anderson.)(First part: pre-games, second part to come later with in-game events.)
Relationships: Female Shepard & David Anderson
Series: Reda Shepard [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/253930
Comments: 25
Kudos: 17





	20 times Akuze almost gets Shepard

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second part of the origin fic for Reda Shepard, about whom you can find more here: https://painterofhorizons.tumblr.com/tagged/reda-shepard. Her Earthborn origin fic is called "You owe me, little bird!" and part 1 here in the Reda Shepard collection here on AO3. 
> 
> I'm very excited for this story and hope that you will enjoy it!

**2177 CE**

**NOVEMBER**

She‘s unable to move when the orders hit on her radio, getting lost in gun fire, screams, and chaos.

_Get - - -r ass away - - - there, lieu- - -ant!_

She clenches her sniper rifle to her breast plate, breathing hevaily, trying to fill her lungs with air, but it feels like she‘s inhaling liquid fire and-

_Try - - - high ground and shoot th- - - Shepard - - - Lieu- - - read me?_

Her eyes are dry as she stares at the body next to her in frozen horror, unaware of how long she sits here with him, behind this rock in the middle of hell, unable to even do as much as blink.

_Lieutenant, - - - read me?_

_But Corporal Giles-_ , she stumbles upon her own words, but her CO cuts her off sharply and repeats his order over com.

_GET - - - WAY - - - NOW!_

Something jerks her out of paralysis.

She tears herself away from Corporal Giles‘ dead body next to her, from burned open flesh and sand and blood, and dives headlong out of cover, from pressing herself against the rock behind her to awkwardly crawling away from it on all fours to finally stumbling over the shaking ground, getting away from Giles and their camp and these things. She crashes to the ground when that thing breaks out of earth not even a hundred feet left from her, both unable to balance the abrupt movement under her feet and the terror it leaves her with. Lying on the floor she looks back, the Mako is on its top and in flames, there‘s movement thirty feet left of it and then it‘s gone- She presses her hands against her head in a sudden flash of pain when the screeching echoes over the plain again and prepares to die, but the thing isn‘t interested in her but focussed on Adams and Wen at the other side of the camp. She stares at it in horror when it disappears underground again, none of them has ever seen anything like it, and then it breaks through the surface some hundred feet further just seconds later and both Adams and Wen are gone.

_\- - - tenant - - - where are - - -_

Terror gets her back on all fours. Stubbornness. She gets back moving, desperately holding on to her CO‘s order. She needs to get on a somewhat high position. She needs to get a good sight. She needs to be far enough away so that she can balance out the rapid movements of those things with her sniper rifle and shoot.

Stubbornness has her crawling while the ground shakes, while earth explodes around her. Stubbornness has her ignore the pain in her body, in her eyes, in her lungs, and in her head.

She clings to it when orders change, not directly addressed to her but barked at everyone still alive, whoever that is, to retreat.

She still clings to it when the gun fire has long stopped, as have the screams and the ground shaking. It is quiet again and the sand under her hands is calm as if nothing has ever happened.

She lies on the ground, helplessly shaking, acid burning her lungs, her skin, her mind, she is on somewhat high ground, and she thinks she just needs a good sight, and then she can-

* * *

She‘s more dead than alive when the rescue team arrives sixteen hours later to find nothing but plain empty space and the remains of twelve slaughtered marines. The rest is gone, serving as a hoard for those things that now can‘t even be bothered by the newly arriving ship nor its crew and don‘t even scratch the surface anymore.

They were hungry.

They aren‘t anymore.

Rescue has never been easier - but for Shepard, rescue is anything but that.

They have to sedate her after they haul her into the shuttle, because once consciousness crawls back to her for a short, desperate moment, faint, tortured, pain ridden, she fights everyone who gets close to her. They don‘t know where she takes the strength from - mere physical strength, because it‘s a miracle she‘s still alive, let alone conscious and able to move, even if it‘s uncoordinated and clumsy. Her trachea has taken serious acid damage, so have her lungs, and her oxygen level is low enough to knock her out for days but adrenaline is a hell of an activator. The acid has burned through her armor on her left shoulder and eaten through the suit and her skin, merging flesh, metal and fabric into some raw, open mixture that gets worse with every second she fights them, with every movement she does. But she is caught in the moment when those gigantic angry worms spit in their direction, acid hitting the rock and mostly Corporal Giles next to her, who then dies within seconds, while she just bears minor damage because she‘s one foot farther on the right side of the rock that was their cover.

She doesn‘t recognize the changed surroundings in the shuttle, doesn‘t feel metal under her body instead of sand and acid, doesn‘t see living marines in front of her instead of dead ones. This very moment, she‘s more of a danger to herself than to everyone else, but she‘s fighting like her life depends on it.

Takes three of them to hold her down so that one can give her a shot that finally knocks her out.

Days after she gets rescued, weeks after, years after, she still wakes up gagging, choking, feeling the crippling pain of swallowing acid, of it eating its way from inside out through her flesh. Sometimes it‘s choking without reason before she even thinks about it, just random moments of her body deciding to throw her back when her mind has been almost fine for almost too long. Sometimes it‘s suddenly not being able to swallow when she‘s eating. In the first few weeks, it‘s just simply being unable to breathe without feeling like she eats raw lava - but every time there is the dead, half devoured face of Corporal Giles staring right back at her whenever she closes her eyes to swallow the lava and find oxygen in it.

* * *

They hold a symbolic funeral for her platoon two weeks later, when she is still in hospital, put on a ventilator and feeding tubes and other life-saving machines and unable to articulate herself in ways that matter, but she‘s there. Alive. Awake. More or less conscious. And she has the news running 24/7, because she is unable to move and can‘t do anything but stare at walls and screens and there‘s some desperate, stubborn part inside her that still hopes it‘s not true, that the next article will talk about survivors, about Akuze but in a different way, about it all being set up for whatever sick kind of reason and that she‘s not the only one left.

There‘s fifty new graves at the ceremony because she _is_ the only one. Fifty names on a plate and a medal in her name while she‘s bedbound, with tubes keeping her alive and a stubborn hope slowly dying inside of her.

* * *

They make her a hero for surviving what should have killed her, put her face up on recruitment posters and extranet advertisements _while she is still in the hospital_. They don‘t even ask about that, take some old picture of her that someone shot on some official celebration event she doesn‘t even remember taking part in. There‘s one short interview with _the sole survivor of Akuze_ on the news that she never gave, she‘s being quoted for what she never said, and they even have little enough decency to accompany that fake statement of hers with a snapshot of herself and four others of her platoon (with Corporal Giles, laughing, alive, but he‘s dead and rotting and _she can_ _‘t even- - -_

Weeks after Akuze messages reach her asking for an actual interview or statement or anything that isn‘t in the official reports and that‘s actually given by her. They ask her how she feels about the death of her comrades. What survival feels like. They congratulate her on her strength.

It isn‘t weakness that had her platoon killed.  
It isn‘t strength that had her survive.  
It‘s stupid luck. Coincidence. Hell, she doesn‘t know what it is, but she is far away from making peace with it.

The messages asking for an interview recur on every anniversary of Akuze.  
A month.  
Six months.  
A year.  
Two.  
Five.  
She doesn‘t even understand what there is to remember on this specific date that is of public interest. She doesn‘t understand what makes her a figure of public interest, either. Soldiers die on any given day. And there‘s nothing good to remember about Akuze.

She never answers any of those messages.

* * *

When the tissue inside her trachea and her lungs has recovered enough to make her independent of masks and tubes and constant medical observation, she‘s grounded. She‘s sent back to Earth for a couple of months to recover, because the air‘s good for her damaged lungs, because home‘s good for her scratched soul, because of regulations and administrative rules and investigation and-

Not that she‘s on trial.

She has done nothing wrong but to survive what should have killed all of them or none, preferably none, no one should have died that day on that damn planet looking for those goddamn colonists, and yet they are dead and she is not and this is wrong and  
 _she can_ _‘t breathe_ -

They have a couple of reasons to send her back and all of them sound meaningless to her. Being back on Earth won‘t change anything. It won‘t bring them back to life. She‘s here, in Vancouver, back where it all started years ago, with cold winter air that cuts her lungs like knives, while her comrades rot in sand and vomit and acid in and around huge fucking worms they have never encountered before on Akuze with a stupid memorial down on Earth because Akuze is no man‘s land for the time being and  
 _she can_ _‘t breathe-_

* * *

She knows she wants back in before her pain ridden brain can grip any other thought that‘s floating through flashes of horror, visualized screams, acid spitting tentacles and other intangible impressions inside her mind. It‘s the first thought she remembers having while still in the hospital, _wanting to go back_ , to save them, to turn back time, to have it all be just a bad, extreme nightmare, or to at least, _at least_ , rescue what is left of her platoon to have them returned home and given a proper burial, not just even more time to rot in the sand with some fake, meaningless ceremony on Earth. They deserve better than that, for God‘s sake!

She wants back on active duty. It‘s the one thought that keeps her alive. With every day that passes with her on med leave, with every day she‘s reduced to inaction, with every day that has her trapped inside Akuze without being able to actively do something about it, she wants back more badly.

* * *

She‘s 23 years old when they send her into the same programme where veterans twice her age go, those who have been front line in battle serving their people for as long as she‘s old, with missing limbs and severe injuries and other real trauma. She, on the other hand, has just been sitting behind some rock hoping to still be alive the next second, letting down her comrades, hiding like a child who‘s afraid of the dark. She‘s a disgrace for everyone in this programme and she‘s drowning, _oh god she is drowning-_

* * *

She thinks about dead soldiers and then she thinks about how it will cost her her position. How every day she spends on Earth for „recovery“ decreases her chance of getting back on active duty, of getting back on the front lines. And then she hates herself for the selfishness, just adding up more guilt for being this self-centered, when fifty other marines don‘t have the privilege of worrying about their duty anymore, and never will again. The feeling is crippling.

She tries to shake it off, but that doesn‘t work. Working against it doesn‘t work. Her counselor reassures her that she‘ll be back on active duty and that it will be sooner rather than later, but for a long time, she doesn‘t believe it, no matter how hard she wants nothing but to be back out there and serving.

She knows the list of psychological factors that will get her back on duty, repeats them like a mantra every time she wakes up and every time she struggles - she repeats them non-stop, but it doesn‘t bring her any closer.

Cognition. Pace. Persistence. Reliability. Motivation. Interpersonal functioning. Honesty. Trustworthiness. Stress tolerance.

She feels like she doesn‘t have any of them, and that she‘ll never gain them back. She doesn‘t even know how to get a full night‘s sleep, and it kinda feels like the central, most basic and in theory most easy requirement. What use can she still be if she can‘t even do that?

It‘s hard for her to open up to the therapist when all her scarred brain tells her is: _everything you will say here can and will be used against you_. Costs the counselor weeks to reassure her enough to even get her started - and it‘s not trust that has her going, but a mere _without my_ _‚go‘ you won‘t get your clearance_. Followed by something less threatening, but in the end, that‘s what matters for Shepard: she has to do this, _or else_. There‘s no workaround.

It doesn‘t make it easier, anyways.

* * *

Shepard soon learns that spending hours on the edge of a panic attack is exhausting. Maybe it is even more exhausting than actually experiencing one.

There‘s times when she wishes for it to simply happen, to be able to let go and just be done with it for the moment, because after all, losing grip of reality like that never lasts longer than twenty minutes. It‘s physiological. Maybe the body isn‘t able to panic for a longer than twenty minutes, who cares. But twenty minutes of real horror seems better than six, eight, sometimes twelve hours of being at the edge of it.

Almost, but not quite there.

Being paralyzed for twenty minutes in terror seems like a better deal than half a day of _almost_ being frozen, _almost_ throwing up, _almost_ loosing it, of that damned state of mind where she feels dizzy enough to loose enough focus and concentration to really suck at what she‘s doing but not dizzy enough to actively keep her from trying.

Almost, but not quite there.

But she knows giving in won‘t help her get her clearance back. Panic won‘t help her. And half assed is still better than not done at all. So she grinds her way through it, making friends with that state of almost, _almost_ there, _almost_ done, _almost_ through, _almost_ better.

Giving in never is an option.

And _almost_ is _not quite there_.

* * *

Every time she snaps at someone, her discharge date is delayed. Interpersonal functioning. It‘s not even the official reason - they find other things to put in front, medical matters, therapy, even bureaucratic ones - but she knows she fucks up when she‘s losing it. But she cannot help it either.

She snaps at that young recruit who‘s doing his first year‘s service here when he just wants to check in with her because she‘s been sitting there, frozen, staring into space like paralyzed with only her leg restlessly tapping on the ground, when she‘s in that bitter state of _almost_ again for God knows how long. When she‘s caught in the feeling of acid burning its way down her trachea, overlapped by the taste of blood and vomit and rotting peach in her otherways dry mouth. He sees her sitting there like that for twenty minutes, talks to her, he just wants to help - and she almost jumps at him.

Gets her another week.

She gets in a fight with two hardly outgrown teenagers right after enlistment when she overhears them making fun of Akuze. That one almost gets her a dishonourable discharge, if everyone wasn‘t as sympathetic towards her as they are. They understand. But it‘s still not okay. It does add another month and an entry in her record that no one will ever care about. Still, she isn‘t even sorry for her action, and those shitheads better be glad that she only dealt them a blow. It does end _their_ career before it even starts, too, but that‘s but a faint comfort for her. People like that shouldn‘t even be considered for enlistment to begin with, not with any of the marines who die out there day after day to serve their people and-

When Anderson vid calls her that night, he doesn‘t even hide his anger. Doesn‘t let her explain. Doesn‘t even allow her as much as to inhale when he‘s done with her.

 _Shake it off, Shepard!_ , he tells her, cold, stiff, unusually impersonal towards her. _Get over it._

He does not mean that she should forget what happened on Akuze, nor not be bitter about it, because everyone knows that‘s impossible. She can‘t. Doesn‘t want to. And no one expects that from her.  
But it means _get over it_ as in _do not let it dictate your actions_.  
As in _move forward_.  
As in _do not let grief and guilt turn into anger and dishonourable behaviour_ and as in _I_ _‘m done with your hasty panicked reaction_.

* * *

She learns to control that anger - to some extent.

The first time she‘s able to talk about it with a superior in charge of her is a total disaster. When she goes through her report with Admiral Paczek, who had initially sent her platoon to Akuze and feels just as guilty as she does, she doesn‘t have her anger under control at all. How could she?

When Paczek concludes with a faint _We knew nothing about thresher maws at the time they attacked on Akuze_ , she snaps. Being in front of an inofficial investigation committee or not, that statement feels like a slap in her face. It feels like spitting on fifty fucking graves.

 _That_ _‘s no excuse!_ , she hisses through clenched teeth.

_Pardon?_

_Our ignorance is a bad excuse for letting fifty marines die._ She forces herself to add a pressed _Sir_ as well, but that doesn‘t make a lot of amends.

He returns her look baffled, affronted. _We didn_ _‘t_ let _them die, Lieutenant. They were overrun._ You _were overrun, you were there - goddamnit, it_ _‘s_ your _report we_ _‘re talking about here._

She doesn‘t even remember writing the report they are discussing. It‘s like some days she feels like she remembers every second of that day, with every painful little detail, every sound, every smell, every scream, every goddamn little moment from landing on Akuze until being rescued - on other days she doesn‘t even remember when or that she wrote that report at all, much less Akuze itself. It is all so blurry, some days not even vague, distant flashes of what are clear memories on good days (or bad days, depending on how to frame it). It isn‘t more than broken pictures, fractures of what might have happened, that cross her mind, but not a single clear memory. A version of how her damaged brain thinks it might have been.  
Now, she isn‘t even sure anymore if what she had written down in the report one day (which day?) are real memories at all or just things her brain made up, trying to patch loose ends together on one of the days she thought she would remember clearly. Hell, she doesn‘t know what happened, it‘s all a mess inside her head.

And still, if they had known what was waiting for them on Akuze...

 _It was our responsibility to keep them safe_ , she says, deadly serious, digging her own grave. What she means is: it was _her_ responsibility, because _she_ _‘s_ the last one standing. _She_ failed them. And if they had only known about the enemies on Akuze, if they didn‘t go in blindfolded- _We should have known, Sir! Going into battle unprepared is like-_

 _You were not going into battle_ , he shuts her down, not tolerating any further backtalk. _It was a recon mission, no combat operation._

_But knowing what we could run into-_

_Enough, Lieutenant!_ , he sharply ends their conversation. He has lost soldiers before, he loses them on a daily basis, and he won‘t let a rookie with little to no experience talk about a mission or question his authority like that.

When she inhales to start another response, he dismisses her sharply. He gets where she comes from, they all do, but if she can‘t deal with people around her dying, she‘s in the wrong place with the military.

* * *

Maybe she can do another round or two. Maybe then the screaming will stop.

She works out until she collapses in exhaustion. Doesn‘t take much to reach that point in the beginning, but it‘s the only way to keep herself distracted, concentrated on her aching body rather than on the things in her head, the spinning and turning and tossing and it‘s never ending. She yearns for that feeling of being so sore that she can barely move, when she crashes on her bed and isn‘t even able to turn around anymore to get herself in a somewhat comfortable position. That‘s when she‘s able to sleep. That‘s when her brain is shut down, not overanalyzing what she does or does not remember and how they could or could not have prevented it.

They couldn‘t.  
She knows that.  
But accepting it is a whole different topic.

When she‘s not in therapy or working out, she manically reads everything she can find on the extranet and in any accessible library about thresher maws and any other kind of species they could possibly or even impossibly run into on any future mission. She will not make the same mistake again and rely on _oh it_ _‘s just a routine check up mission_.  
At some point, the facts, the details she hammers into her brain, into every cell of her body, start to overlap the images of her comrades burning, of sand and blood and vomit under her hands while she crawls through hell (but the images of Corporal Giles not even an arm‘s length next to her, melting under the acid those things spit in their direction and that just missed her by inches, those images never fade). Being able to cite every paper she reads about those creatures word-by-word begins to overshadow the screams of her squad she hears every night (but the images of Corporal Giles not even an arm length next to her, melting under the acid those things spit in their direction and that just missed her by inches, those images never fade).

A month later she forces herself to slow down, to stop it, because obsessively indulging in research like this won‘t get her back her clearance faster, either. It just makes her look more desperate. 

* * *

Anderson calls her biweekly while she‘s grounded. Always has an excuse. Never just calls to ask how she‘s holding up. At least that‘s how it is the first couple of times. At some point he runs out of fake reasons and just straight forward admits that someone has to check in on her, and he doesn‘t mind being that someone if she doesn‘t.

She doesn‘t.

Sometimes, she is annoyed by the timing of his calls, because they tend to roll in when she doesn‘t make any progress, and if she doesn‘t, what is she supposed to tell him? What does he call her for if not to hear her having progress in her name? He reassures her that‘s not the reason for his interest. It‘s not like they haven‘t been in touch regularly for the past eight years anyways and it has never been about progress for him in the first place.

It doesn‘t really convince her, but deep down, she appreciates his calls. He‘s a constant, a good one, in her guilt and pain ridden life. His calls are something she holds on to, something that motivates her on the bad days. Not on the very bad ones, that‘s a different topic, but those are rare and she can take them.

He always asks how she is holding up, and she always replies: _Alive, Sir_. That‘s it, nothing else. Alive. Because that‘s all she knows for sure for a very long time: she is still alive. She doesn‘t know why, doesn‘t understand it, and she can‘t make peace with it. That doesn‘t change the facts, though. And she never lies to him, never has, never will. So she keeps it simple.

She‘s alive.

It‘s all he needs to know.

* * *

She‘s grounded for six months. Her lungs are back at 87 percent after three, then physical rehab starts. Before, she is strictly forbidden any kind of intense physical activity, and it almost drives her crazy. They say rest, the most important thing in her recovery is to rest, but when she rests, her mind goes spinning, her heart starts racing, and eventually she hyperventilates and has an even harder time breathing than before. That‘s what rest does to her. That‘s why she can‘t rest.

There‘s no other option for her than to ignore the doctors orders, and it makes her attending physician incredibly mad. She has never seen anyone become so irritably angry over her reckless, stubborn behaviour (though she cannot change it in this very specific matter, it‘s not like she‘s actively deciding to be incapable of resting). It adds to her list, again, just another reason for them to keep her off duty for even longer, but most important: it seriously endangers her chances for getting sent back to the front line.

That is what really catches her off guard. When the doc threatens to have her suspended from active duty because she jeopardises her recovery over being unwilling to lie low for the time taken.

The next day she seeks out counselling for the first time on her own will. She sits there and says she doesn‘t know how to handle this, it, all of it, and she‘s close to tears. She doesn‘t cry, but for a very dark moment, she is _really_ desperate.  
If she doesn‘t get sent back on _active_ duty, if that‘s being taken away from her... What else is she good for? Wanting back is the only thing that keeps her going, even on the really bad days, with all the guilt and despair and pain inside of her. She never, not once, doubts that she‘ll be back serving on the front line. And within the blink of an angry doctor‘s eye, she‘s almost stripped of that chance.

Her therapist smiles and just says: _you will learn to_.

She‘s there.

She‘s made the first step.

Recovery doesn‘t really start for her until that day.

* * *

**2178 CE**

**APRIL**

She‘s waiting for her clearance, waiting for the results, but they take their time. On her last day of rehab, she still hasn‘t heard from them, still has no orders. She still doesn‘t know what‘s in next for her.

She is told underhand that she‘ll be cleared, whenever that is, and then she is suggested to take some personal time off until then. She doesn‘t plan to, but they make it just as clear that this tempered suggestion can also become an official order and that it will only add more time on her record. So she gives in, grinding her teeth, trying very hard to keep her mouth shut. She doesn‘t even know how much of that personal time off she is expected to take exactly. Drives her crazy - all she wants is to be back on duty. Wherever that is. But she‘s done with sitting still, staring at walls, and she‘s officially done with rehab. She‘s ready to go out again!

They suggest some time off, some vacation, some letting loose and enjoying herself, maybe some family time. There‘s nothing in that list even close to what she plans to do, so she calls Cynthia and spends the next two weeks with her. After all, she‘s the closest Shepard has to a family, and she hasn‘t seen her in years. It would even be nice if only circumstances were different.

Cynthia knows and she doesn‘t ask any questions. (She‘s seen the reports on the news, she‘s seen Reda‘s face on the commercials, fully aware that she‘d never approve them being asked, only over her cold dead body - and she knows that _over her cold dead body_ is exactly where the problem lies buried. She‘s been married to a military soldier, is an offspring of a military father and almost enlisted herself, she knows what trauma looks like even if it‘s not directly addressed.)

Shepard spends her 24th birthday grounded, on Earth, with Cynthia, but it feels hollow and wasted. She‘s thankful for the company, and she tries to enjoy it, but it doesn‘t change the fact that she‘s restless, that she should be out there, she wants to be out there, she _needs_ to be out again, not here on Earth, on „vacation“, sitting around eating cake with one of the only friends she has, sharing useless anecdotes. All the stories she can think of are about the comrades she‘s spent the last two years with, who were equally like family for her as Cynthia is. So she keeps quiet and listens to Cynthia and tries to smile every now and then and to enjoy her goddamn cake.

This is all wrong and she cannot change the fact that it also feels like that.

* * *

The next time she speaks with Anderson is about three weeks later with apologies that he hasn‘t made it to her birthday. She can‘t be bothered with that, all she wants to know is when she‘ll be back on active duty. And where. But most of all when. She‘s done with waiting!

 _I_ _‘ve passed my evals_ , she tells him before he even has the chance to tell her why he‘s here, in Vancouver, in person. It should make her perplexed, but she‘s too focussed to stumble upon that.

He‘s calm, as always. Well, as most of the time at least. _That_ _‘s what your file says._

_I excelled in the interviews, med exams and fitness test. Twice._

She‘s impatient and she‘s ready. Hell, she‘s been waiting to be allowed back on duty for weeks and she doesn‘t understand why she‘s still here, grounded, doing nothing. And he knows that. He wasn‘t part of the decision chain, but if they‘d ask him? It _is_ too early. After what happened on Akuze, it is too early. He knows the reports and reality must have been way beyond that. He has encountered enemies like that before himself, he knows how it feels. And with fifty people dead and only one surviving?  
It is too early.  
But they decide it isn‘t and arguing with that will only be bad for her career so he keeps his mouth shut. But Shepard has known him long enough to sense his concern.

 _You don_ _‘t believe me, Sir?_

 _I_ _‘m not saying you‘re lying, Shepard_ , he replies. He doesn‘t imply that. Never would. He knows her all too well.

 _Then what_ are _you saying, Sir?_ She can‘t help that disappointment shows clearly in her voice.

 _You_ _‘ve got a history with being able to play along_ , he says straight away. As much as Shepard is known for backtalk and ignoring chains of command and generally for _opinions_ , he is well aware of her ability to say what is needed when it serves the purpose. Her purpose. She‘s been trained in that ever since she was a child. He doesn‘t condemn it, he just acknowledges it. He knows better.

 _I passed because I_ _‘m good_ , she replies calmly and he‘s surprised by her collectedness. She‘s had time to get practice in that, he knows her files. And he knows that patience is usually not high on her list of virtues. _And because I_ _‘m ready._ She looks him in the eye without blinking, without giving in. In the same serious tone she adds: _If you_ _‘re worried about my state of mind or my influence on others, you can request having me transferred under your command and personally keep an eye on me, Commander_.

He wants to take this as a joke and maybe in another life it is one. But he can tell by the fact that she never calls him by his rank off duty, only by Sir, _sometimes even by his last name_ , that she‘s pissed. Maybe it should have been a joke when she started it, but it isn‘t. And yet she has no idea that she just struck home.

When he doesn‘t reply directly but leaves her hanging for a moment for that undertone that was just a little too explicit, something in her posture changes. It‘s barely noticeable, but he can read that shift in her stance quite well.

 _Are you filling me in why you_ _‘re here?_ she finally asks. Part of her gives up hope that he‘s here to tell her where she‘s going. Maybe they revoked her clearance after all. Maybe there‘s another indefinite amount of time added, for an indefinite reason, and she will just stay grounded forever and lose her mind. Maybe she should make peace with that. And still, there‘s this stubborn hope in her, that tells her otherwise. _Do you know where I will be stationed?_

She just wants to have some kind of future in the military after Akuze, any kind, she isn‘t even picky about what or where she‘ll be stationed. Just being stationed somewhere that‘s front line again, that isn‘t an office (they offered her that but what use is she behind a desk?). She just wants to get going again. And with all of her old platoon being dead - she forces herself not to flinch at the thought of them - she‘s got nowhere to return to. She doesn‘t even have a CO anymore. Right now, she‘s got nothing but the vague offer to spend the rest of her days behind a desk doing paperwork with a good payment. But all of her return-to-work evaluation state differently - just for some unknown reason, she still has no orders what to do with her clearance. And every day she spends on „vacation“ it dreads her more. Every day that passes where she‘s here doing nothing, the crippling feeling grows that slowly crawls up her spine, whispering the names of her dead comrades inside her head when she is just about to fall asleep. She‘s no good doing nothing, and she gets worse every day. In retrospect it almost feels like rehab was better, and to her rehab was hell.

Anderson knows _that_ as well. That‘s why he‘s here. He has been tinkering with the idea for some time already, but then Akuze happened and thwarted it. With her clearance now, no matter what he thinks about it, he requested exactly what Shepard had been spitting out just seconds ago in a moment of hurt ego speaking.

She is good with structure and bad with authorities - it has always made him wonder how easily she had been able to adapt not only into a life outside the Reds when he consigned her to the care of his ex-wife, but also into military regulations when she enlisted. The latter was six years ago and he has kept an eye on her career ever since. Maybe it isn‘t too different from the structures in the Reds after all, or maybe it is, and it is both what she wanted and needed after years of running with a gang. In the end he doesn‘t care for the reasons, he cares for results and he cares for means. And Shepard excels in boths. It‘s her stubbornness and strong will that get her into trouble with her superiors and keep her from reaching her potential once too often though. Shepard is good, but she is hard to handle when expected to blindly follow orders.  
He never expects that from his subordinates.

 _You_ _‘re being transferred to the SSV Tokyo._

The look of surprise on her face is priceless. He tries to memorize it as well as he can, knowing it‘s something really, really rare.

 _But that_ _‘s..._ The defensiveness in her tone is gone. _That_ _‘s your ship, Sir._

 _It is_ , he replies and tries not to smirk. _That a problem, Lieutenant?_

She shakes her head, trying to get back her professionality. There‘s another change in her posture and Anderson is glad to see it, even if he expected nothing else.

 _No, Sir!_ Her shoulders haven‘t been this straight in... she doesn‘t remember. Resignation makes room for pure excitement. _When do I start?_

* * *

Recovery is easier when she is back on active duty - to some extent, it even seems like recovery doesn‘t really start until she‘s back on a ship.

On the SSV Tokyo, everyone knows who she is, what she survived, at least in outlines. It was all over the news for days right after Akuze, and a topic on unofficial channels as well. Yet nobody talks about it with her. No one even mentions it. No one gives her looks. She‘s just the rookie, the new face on the Tokyo, the one trying to fit in.

And they let her. They don‘t even side-eye her when the first nights hit really hard - not because being on the ship is hard. That‘s all she wanted so badly for the last six months. But it does something to her, being here, back on duty with not one known face around her but the Captain‘s. For a couple of days it almost feels like she‘s back at day one, back crawling on the ground with blood and vomit and acid in her mouth, back at rock bottom, _and she doesn_ _‘t understand it._ It shouldn‘t be hard being back on duty, and at least during the day it isn‘t. She‘s busy, she‘s useful again, she‘s assigned to work that‘s necessary to help keep this ship running. She has purpose. Recovery is easier with her hands busy and her mind focussed on something real, not just occupational therapy.

But during the nights? She‘s back on all fours, crawling through sand and death.

* * *

It‘s easy having nightmares when she‘s grounded and has a room to herself. When no one‘s there to notice. When she just has to grind through.  
Not so much when she shares common quarters with 23 other crew members and she‘s the one keeping everybody from sleeping night after night.

After a couple of days she asks the doc for sleeping pills, but he says no. Says they all got their demons. Says she has to learn how to deal with it.

He is young, younger than herself, probably straight out of med school. What the fuck does he know? About life and about demons? And about how she lets her comrades down when she keeps them from sleeping through the night just because she can‘t? What the fuck does he know about that?

It‘s Hector Emerson, chef in the Alliance Military for 35 years and longer on board on the SSV Tokyo than any other crewmember, who tries to talk her to reason after a week. Tells her she needs to relax. That they don‘t care. That they‘re all equipped with earplugs and that really, they do not care. That stressing her out will only make her a weaker soldier than he knows she is, because otherwise she wouldn‘t be on this ship, serving with them, right now. But no one needs a weak addition to the crew. He says he needs her on top of what she‘s able to do, but after all, he‘s only the cook and what can she do for him other than eat what he serves?

But she can hardly do even that in the first week. Every time she tries to eat, she tastes that familiar mixture of blood, acid and vomit, and then she can‘t even eat one bite.

She looks into unknown faces around her, faces that don‘t care about who she is or where she comes from, and she thinks: this is wrong. Every single one of them is wrong.

For Carlton Tucks there should be Harley Norris.  
For Rosamund Draven Marlyn Boone.  
For Amina Waaberi Emery Cooper.

Pirti Harmaajärvi.  
Ferid Elcin.  
Ichiro Sakamoto.  
Xavier Mata.

She recalls every single of the fifty names that she should serve with.  
None of them is here.  
None of them will ever be around again.

* * *

With two weeks back on duty, Anderson calls her in for a talk. The moment she enters his cabin, she knows she fucked up. That‘s it. She failed her probation and will end up stuck behind a desk doing paperwork. Her active duty is over.

 _You wanted to talk to me, Sir?_ She‘s standing there, back straight, hands folded behind it but covered in cold sweat.

_At ease, Lieutenant. Have a seat._

If he‘s about to send her back, there‘s no need to make herself a home here. _I_ _‘d prefer to stand, Sir._

 _Have a seat, Shepard_ , he repeats patiently and waits until she reluctantly follows his orders. He‘d rather call it a friendly suggestion, they‘re not here to have _that_ kind of talk she obviously expects to be given. Yet, he has never seen someone sit more uncomfortably stiff in a chair that‘s surprisingly comfortable and hard not to enjoy, compared to the rest this ship has to offer. The benefit of being the Captain, though if he‘d been asked he would rather trade some of the space here in favour of more useful matters.

When she makes no attempt to get any more comfortable, he sighs soundlessly.

 _Am I in trouble, Sir?_ she asks before he can start talking.

Her glance is mildly irritated, he thinks, and - is that a shimmer of fear? It‘s true, they have had this kind of talk before, and more times than not she _was_ in trouble. But that‘s years ago and before she became part of his command, and for a moment he feels sorry she takes this the wrong way.

 _If there_ _‘s nothing I‘m unaware of, you‘re not. Is there something I‘m unaware of?_ The latter is meant as a joke, he doesn‘t really expect her to get in trouble within just two weeks onboard the Tokyo - but Shepard takes it dead serious.

_No, Sir._

She doesn‘t sound half as convinced as she wants to, though. It‘s way too obvious.

 _Talk to me, Shepard. What_ _‘s going on in your head?_

Even if she‘s not in trouble - and so far she‘s not convinced she isn‘t - there‘s no point in lying. She has never lied to him. She owes him that much respect.

 _Feels like I_ _‘m failing the crew, Sir. And disappointing you._

 _Failing?_ he echoes her with disbelief in his voice. _Disappointing?_ He can‘t help but laugh out loud for a moment. _Shepard, do you really think no one on this ship ever has a nightmare? Or that anyone expects you to be over it magically within two days?_

 _It_ _‘s seven months, Sir._ If it was just two days, she‘d be more understanding with herself. But here, it does feel like she just doesn‘t have her shit together.

Anderson‘s glance becomes serious again, his voice as calm as always. _That_ _‘s right, kid. It‘s been seven months. What happened on Akuze is brutal. It‘s nightmare stuff. Seven months are shit for what you‘ve been through. That‘s nothing. It‘s okay to not be over it by now. Hell, it‘s okay to never be over it. Acknowledging that doesn‘t strip you of your accomplishments nor your worth. Just keep moving forward_ , he looks at her with all superior support and fatherly feelings he has for that woman in front of him who came so far, _and you_ do _that. You keep moving forward. Everyone knows that._

She keeps quiet for a moment, almost looks surprised to him. Almost. But she is definitely on the edge, and he needs her concentrated, not nervous. He doesn‘t care for messed up.

 _I_ _‘m not sending you back because Akuze messed with you, Shepard. And for God‘s sake, I said at ease. Watching you sit like that will even cause_ me _a backache, okay? You_ _‘re not being laid off, so relax._

For a moment it‘s quiet enough between them that he can clearly hear her exhale in something like relief. And finally, some of that stiffness fades from her posture. It‘s not quite what he would say looks comfortable, not even close, but it‘s better.

 _Things like Akuze will happen again in the future_ , he continues his pep-talk. _If you_ _‘re lucky, you will survive them. It is that easy. Survival is not always a matter of skill, Shepard, and it ain‘t fair. Accepting that might as well be the hardest part of our job. Understood?_

She takes a moment before she answers. Long enough to think about his words, yet short enough to not have it look like insubordination. Eventually, she nods. _Understood, Sir._

Anderson wants her stubborn and forward and risky and with the whole lot of opinions. He wants her to do what she thinks it takes, without hesitation. He doesn‘t want her insecure, and wary, and beaten by survivors guilt.

He offers her tea and they sit there for a while, somewhat at ease, talking about nothing in particular. He is determined to do his part in helping her to recover from the horrible disaster on Akuze. He‘s determined to see that spark in her return, that always was there shining bright within the last eight years. And if that means helping her realize that it‘s okay to be human, that struggling doesn‘t diminish her ability nor worth nor the trust people have in her, that‘s the least he can do.

* * *

**2178 CE**

**AUGUST**

On shore leave she takes part in an Alliance Military training camp in the Sahara. It‘s not quite the same as Akuze, but it‘s wide, it‘s open, it‘s defenseless and it‘s sandy - and that‘s enough to get her adrenaline rush. Mixed with sweat and blood from biting her lip in combat training and being thrown in the sand, it almost tastes like Akuze. She grinds through it, teeth clenched, and powers through. With every step she takes in the unsteady sand, she tries to push it away a little more. Akuze. The thresher maws. Corporal Giles‘ rotten face. Right now she‘s here, in the desert, and not on Akuze. She tries to focus on that, not on something from the past that haunts her more than she likes to admit, because here and now, she‘s got a job to do.

They‘re sent on a survival trip in the desert in squads of four, 130 degrees peak during the day, 70 at night, with not much more than rations for a day. They make the route of five days in under four, including an ambush and an earthquake. She throws up thrice and no one gets why, but no one‘s bothered enough to ask either. They‘ve got a job to do and she does it, as does the rest of her squad.

When the ground is shaking it almost drives her crazy - but it‘s _almost_ , finally. There‘s sand in her mouth, and her eyes, and her memory, and her heart almost bursts when the earth below her feet suddenly breaks in concussion, unexpected and frightening, but she keeps going, she pulls through, clings to the _almost_ she is finally beating.

* * *

**2178 CE**

**NOVEMBER**

Twelve months later she‘s back on Akuze. She forces herself to go back, volunteering as part of a simple supply transportation team backed up by the two dozen marines they always send ever since that thresher maw attack a year ago, and it‘s on the other side of the planet, after all. A low risk mission. There‘s still a couple of inhabited science stations in need of functioning supply chains.

They‘re careful and don‘t run into any kind of trouble. It‘s a mission as smooth as one can dream of. It doesn‘t take more than twelve hours including check up on all facilities, but she can hardly breathe during that time, nor afterwards, no matter how smooth. She forces herself to not let it dictate her the day nor the week nor the month after that mission, just as she forced herself to volunteer for it.

Nobody is surprised that she horribly fails at it. Of course she does, she‘s _nowhere_ near being over what happened on Akuze, no matter how hard she wants to be. Anderson is patient with her, not grounding her again, but carefully picking what tasks he assigns her with in the aftermath of her own reckless, self-destructive insanity, covered up as _being over it_.  
She isn‘t.  
Everyone on the Tokyo knows that. But Anderson can‘t shield her from it forever, and part of him thinks that it actually does help her in the long run - but the momentary effects are devastating. He does send her back to therapy though, if only on vid calls, keeping her on active duty on the ship.

It‘s a long way getting over something like Akuze, and it‘s no one-way-street.

* * *

**2179 CE**

**NOVEMBER**

A year later, she enters specialised training in the Interplanetary Combatives Academy. She‘s got recommendations of four independent high ranking officers for the N-programme, and hell, she is ready. She‘s collected and as over Akuze as she can be. She‘s learning to accept it, to take what happened for what it was.

 _Prove them you_ _‘re worth it_ , Anderson tells her, and doesn‘t mean those who graduate the Academy or have her reommended.

 _Don_ _‘t blow it_ , she tells herself when she is alone. And for God‘s sake, she does not plan to.

She has the initials of fifty dead soldiers tattooed as a fine line on the backside of her left calf, honouring those she outlived by sheer luck. _Make it count_ , she thinks. _Make it skill, not luck._

_Make them proud._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, enjoying, leaving kudos and comments, it is extremely much appreciated. <3 Big shoutout and thanks to my betas BardofHeartDive and Chyrstis who did an amazing job looking over this!


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